hui's monologue : Shanghai Trip Part 5 - A really short trip to Suzhou

Shanghai Trip Part 5 - A really short trip to Suzhou

The bf stays in Putuo and it's a nice quiet part of Shanghai - an area where the government intends to redevelop it as a residential zone while the city boundaries expand.

I love that the roads and pavements are a lot newer (looks a little European don't you think!) and of course a lot cleaner as well.

Okay back to the update on the trip to Suzhou! And here we are at the overcrowded Shanghai Hongqiao High Speed Rail station again.

The ride to Suzhou was shorter than the one to Hangzhou. We arrived in about 30 minutes. Similar to Shanghai and Hangzhou, the Suzhou Railway station is connected to the general MRT train line as well.

The Suzhou train system is simpler with only 2 lines. Much easier to navigate around!

Their train cabins are smaller than the ones we saw in Hangzhou and Shanghai, and definitely less crowded. Though the latter point could be due to the the fact that it was the weekdays and it was around noon time.

We were heading towards Pingjiang Street - one of those ancient towns of Suzhou. We got out of the train station this view of the city greeted us. Suzhou is a lot more old-school than Shanghai and Hangzhou. It has this vibe of an ancient city and most of the infrastructure resembles that. Even modern infrastructures like bus stops mimics the city's nature as a place that has centuries of history to share.

The air in Suzhou (at least for that particular day) was very fresh. The winds were chilly and definitely much colder than Shanghai. They have these green stations at the side of the road - apparently one can loan the bikes for a fee (payable with your train card). But I'm not sure how the return policy works.

We walked past a huge crowd of people waiting outside gated grounds and for a moment I thought they were protesting against something. Turned out they are parents waiting to receive their children from school!

This crowd..

It was a 15 minute walk from the train station. The cool weather made it so much more manageable I must say.

The number of Starbucks outlets in China is unbelievable. We keep seeing them - no matter where we go or how far flung that place is.

There are a lot of quaint little shops selling a huge variety of souvenirs.

The cat cafe caught my attention and we decided to drop by for a break as well.

So many cuties! The outlet is evidently owned by a Taiwanese with all the cutesy cartoons, Taiwanese pop music and traditional Chinese words scribbled all over the cafe. Unfortunately we came in in the later afternoon and it was the napping hour.

We left the cat cafe after finishing our food and headed back to the train station so we could explore other places for dinner before heading back to Shanghai.

On our way back to the train station, we decided to pop by this structure. Not entirely sure what it was meant for though! Haha.